The Mesmerist by Caroline Woods

My spouse got this book out of the library as an e-book and it came up in his search of murder mysteries. It does chronicle a murder, but it is by no means a book that I would put in that genre--it is more like historical fiction. He thought I would like it more than he, but in the end, it went the other way around. The book centers on a place that really did exist. Founded by a group of elite Quaker women, the Bethany Home for Unwed Mothers opened its doors in 1876 in Minneapolis, Minnesota. Amidst the glitz of the Gilded Age Twin Cities, the Bethany Home provided unmarried and outcast women and mothers with food, shelter, work, and a second chance at life. This book tells the story of three women within the walls of the Bethany Home in 1894: the real-life Bethany Home treasurer Abby Mendenhall, the naive and lovestruck resident May, and the mysterious and mesmerizing new resident Faith. As these women each fight to overcome the hardships dealt to them, they must also learn to survive perhaps the gravest danger of all: what is right in front of our eyes. Underlying their individual struggles there is a gruesome, bone-chilling, and immensely puzzling murder that overlays all that happens in the book.